Titanium Plate & Frame Oil Coolers

An air compressor manufacturer is offering as an option titanium plate and frame heat exchangers for oil cooling with tower water vs. a traditional shell & tube heat exchanger. The application choice seems good overall, however, can anyone indicate their experience with package unit P&F oil coolers? Galvanic corrosion is a problem at our site, thus corrosion resistant metals and construction is a must for this application. The benefits seem to be low corrosion, low errosion, great heat transfer, and a small package (vs. a very large S&T HX). Downside seems to be bio-fouling and labor intensive regasketing for glue-in gaskets. Any real world experience with this issue would be appreciated.

 

[TBP]

What about a stainless steel shell & coil HX?

 

[TD2K]

I've seen plate and frame exchangers used in amine/amine service but know they are used in more areas than just this. Operations/Maintenance were very happy with them. Maintenance's biggest problem they said was learning how to reapply the gaskets (as you alluded to) and preventing leaks after cleaning the plates. Once that was worked out, they had no problems with them.

This should be a pretty good service for a plate and frame and should be a lot smaller and less expensive than a conventional S&T exchanger. Get some references and talk to the users.

 

[ferreiro]

Hi steam600,
i have no idea where in the world you are BUT size for size Plate coolers are better.What you need to ask the person doing the piping design it to include a way that you can flush with chemicals both sides indepently,we have done this for many of our clients and maintain a program to assist them via a pressure drop calculation.The use of gaskets is critcal as Viton will out last neoprene but the costs well that depends what cooler it is.The units are availible with a larger gap between them for less fouling.
Talk to Alfa Laval as the do one there others the design you require gets you a few quotes.
best
Robert

 

[JOM]

steam600,

Plate heat exchangers are used extensively in the dairy, brewery, food and other industries and have been for decades. They are terrific "machines", far more interesting than S&T exchangers.

Regasketting is no big deal. It gives you the opportunity to clean the plates at the same time. The flexibility fo PHEs allows the designer to include surplus capacity to cope with any degree of fouling. They can be expanded easily. The fouling side can be cleaned in place if desired. Design is very accurate and suppliers are very competitive. If I was still in the business, I'd be offering you a design and price.

JOM Cheers,
John.

 

[MortenA]

P&F are often used for lube oil coolers

Best regards

Morten

 

[saxon]

Steam600, Fouling can be a problem with this type of exchanger, especially if CW chemistry is not well controlled (but this is a whole nother issue). As for cleaning and repair, we don't have problems, we have two sets of plates, one for changeout (this speeds up the repair and brings the unit back on line more quickly)and the set of plates removed for cleaning, repair or replacement (yes the plates do corrode just like tubes). These then can be done and inspected at leisure and placed into storage for the next swap out.

You might want to check with APV Crepaco Inc., they have a Heat Transfer Handbook, that covers the details of plate heat exchangers.

Good Luck!
saxon